


Woes of the Undying

by lusteralliance (orphan_account)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, anyway byleth needs a hug and a hug and a h, cranked this bad boy out before bedtime hghghgh, i made it teen and up bc its Sad, im just..sad, possible spoilers on byleth's backstory, the word 'alcohol' is said Once in the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 23:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20825237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lusteralliance
Summary: He knows it is selfish, but Seteth is angry, angry that Byleth believes he is the only one who has ever hurt this way.





	Woes of the Undying

**Author's Note:**

> seteth you b

Flayn peeked into the bedroom, holding a mug of hot cocoa in her hands. Her father glanced up when she crept inside, closing the door behind her, and Seteth lightly patted Byleth’s shoulder to get his attention. Byleth looked up slowly, his teal eyes glazed.

“Here,” Flayn chirped, and she placed her cup into Byleth’s trembling hands. “I made some cocoa for you.” She looked up at Seteth, who smiled briefly and gave a quick nod of gratitude.

“Thank you, Flayn,” rasped Byleth. He stared at his reflection in the steaming drink, wrapped in a soft gray blanket beside Seteth in bed. His expression was flat and emotionless, with his lips pressed in a firm line. But his eyes...they were brimming with tears that had threatened to fall for hours but never left his long lashes, clouded over with grief. Seteth knew what he was feeling; he’d felt it too, many centuries ago. As did Flayn.

The girl sat by Byleth, watching patiently for him to drink. Byleth continued to stare into his cup, still as a stone, and Seteth brushed his arm again. He raised his face, but he didn’t meet Seteth’s eyes.

“Byleth, you should drink,” he murmured gently. “It will help.”

“No,” Byleth whispered, and he placed the mug of cooling cocoa on the nightstand without turning his head. “Nothing will help.” Flayn’s eyes followed her drink, then returned sadly to Byleth. The professor—he had once been called that—closed his eyes, taking in a shaky breath. He said nothing else, wallowing in self-pity.

Seteth knew it was wrong, but he felt a prickle of annoyance. He knew it was unreasonable, but he was irritated. He knew it was cruel, but he was angry at Byleth. Thinking he was the only one who had seen each and every person he’d ever loved be swept away by the river of time, as if he was the only one who had ever been hurting.

Seteth sighed, getting off the side of Byleth’s bed and beckoning his daughter after him.

“Come, Flayn, let’s leave him be.” Flayn slipped off the covers and onto the floor, tiptoeing over to her father and taking his hand. Seteth turned his gaze to the ground as he opened the bedroom door, leading the way through, and Flayn closed it behind her. When she let go of the handle, and her delicate hands clasped together over her lap, her green eyes averted to the square of gray daylight that stretched across the floor from the window at the opposite side of the hall.

“Will he be all right, Father?” Flayn mumbled. Seteth shook his head, folding his arms.

“I do not know. He will learn to grow used to it, but until then, he will have some trouble adjusting to the truth.” The truth that was he would outlive everyone he knew, everyone he would know, the only constant being himself and those cursed, cursed lungs that would keep breathing, even when he begged them to stop.

Flayn raised her head, and there was concern shining in her honest, earnest eyes. “Father...maybe you should be with him.”

Seteth found himself saying, “Why is that?”

“He is hurting! And you left him all alone. He needs us, just as much as we need him,” Flayn reasoned softly. “Don’t you remember how you felt?”

“I do, but I moved past it,” Seteth replied. A flash of anger crossed Flayn’s gaze for just an instant, and she stamped her bare foot onto the ground, her hands curled into tight fists.

“But you were in pain! And you sought company where you could find it, whether it be in me, or—or Mother—or….”

Seteth squeezed his eyes shut in shame. Alcohol.

“And I was in pain, too,” Flayn added, her voice shaking with anger. Seteth glanced down at her in the dark hallway, and there were tears streaking down her cheeks. “If you won’t think about yourself, then think about me, Father…! I needed your help, I needed you. And right now, so does he.”

Seteth’s eyes stung at the sight of his beloved daughter, shivering with rivulets of bitter tears dribbling down to her chin, darkening her soft black dress. He truly was a fool, if his own child had to lecture him.

“Go on, now,” he murmured, his voice breaking just a little. “I will talk with him.” Flayn let out a trembling sigh of relief, and she threw her arms around Seteth’s waist and squeezed him in a tight hug. Seteth brushed his hand over her silky green curls, and the girl let go of him, nodding as he turned to Byleth’s bedroom door.

“I will go outside,” Flayn whispered, when Seteth’s hand froze on the handle.

“Thank you, Flayn.” He closed his eyes, listening to the soft pattering of Flayn’s footsteps as she disappeared down the hall, before pushing the door open.

Byleth did not look like the man Seteth had left him as. He was curled up in the blankets, his face buried deeply into the pillow he had been leaning on just minutes before. His shoulders shook with silent sobs, making not a sound as he cried.

What a fool Seteth was. What a fool.

Seteth closed the door behind him, then approached the bed slowly. The closer he got, the more he was able to discern the pitiful noises Byleth was making. They were muffled and strained, and small and fragile, like they were being made by a tiny bird with broken wings.

“Byleth,” Seteth uttered, and Byleth’s grasp on the pillow tightened; his fingers clutched at the soft material, and his face pushed deeper into it, letting out a strangled sob. “Byleth, sit up. You are going to suffocate if you keep at your puling.”

“So be it,” Byleth mumbled, and Seteth nearly struck him. How dare he. How dare he think of such a cowardly thing, so soon.

“Sit up,” Seteth ordered, and Byleth made a gulping sound, and he raised his head just a little so the tip of his nose was barely visible over the bunching of his pillow, and he was taking in sharp, long breaths, his teal eyes surprisingly dry. Was he not just crying?

“What will you tell me?” Byleth growled into his pillow. “That it’s all right? That it will get easier?” Seteth didn’t nod, but Byleth was right. So he decided to reword his thoughts.

“No. I wanted you to talk to me.”

“I won’t.”

“Then I will sit here until you change your mind.”

Byleth glared up at Seteth, and Seteth glared down, and it was only when Byleth closed his eyes and sat up slowly, hugging the pillow to his chest with an air of pained resignation, that Seteth knew he was opening up a little once more.

His voice shook when he spoke, quite some time after he’d sat up against the headboard.

“I miss them,” he whispered.

Seteth nodded. His students, his friends. His family.

“Sometimes I wonder if—if my mother had just let me die, instead of getting the spirit of a god forced into my lifeless body...would I be happier?”

Seteth opened his mouth, then closed it, sensing the overflowing kettle that signaled the flooding of Byleth’s long suppressed, long broiling emotions had finally come.

“Maybe I was meant to be dead. That way, I wouldn’t have to see everyone I loved die before me. That way, they wouldn’t have to grow old and gray while I don’t change at all, and that way, they wouldn’t—” Byleth paused, pressing his hand to his mouth to stifle a heavy sob, one that seemed to make his whole body shudder “—they wouldn’t have to leave me all alone….”

Seteth squeezed a handful of the blanket he sat on. Why wasn’t Byleth crying?

“I don’t want to live, Seteth,” Byleth continued, which made Seteth flinch. “I don’t want to live without my family.”

He was done. Seteth knew. For he was trembling with his head lowered, not a tear on his cheeks, no hope left in the hole in his chest where his dead heart sat dormant.

“What are we, then?” Seteth asked softly. Byleth looked up at him, his eyes dry, his mouth a firm line, his fingers clenching his blankets so tightly Seteth thought they would snap.

“What?”

“Flayn and I. Are we not family to you?” Byleth took in a small breath, and he nodded slowly.

“You are. I’m sorry…” Seteth turned up his hand so his palm faced the ceiling, and Byleth stared down at it as it lay in the covers. “I just...I miss the others. So much.”

“I know. As do I.” Seteth knew it would be selfish if he spoke of the centuries of people, of friends that had walked the earth long before Byleth that he had loved. So he did not.

He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding when Byleth reached out and placed his own hand in Seteth’s, squeezing it softly.

“I’m—” Seteth’s eyes widened when a tear fell onto Byleth’s lap. “Seteth...I’m so afraid…..”

His teal eyes were flooding with tears now. Seteth’s hand traveled to Byleth’s face, and the professor broke down, burying his face into Seteth’s chest and letting himself be overtaken by heart-wrenching wails as Seteth held him close.

“Don’t be afraid,” Seteth breathed, and Byleth grabbed handfuls of his cape and hiccuped and sobbed like a child. “Time will heal our wounds. We will find a new home, and there, we can start over...what do you say?”

Byleth looked up, snuffling and nodding. Seteth brushed light-colored locks out of his teary eyes and placed a careful kiss on his forehead.

“Will you stay with me, Seteth?” Byleth croaked. Seteth stroked his tear-stained cheek, nodding and resting his forehead against Byleth’s.

“As long as you need me.”

“I will always need you.”

“Then I will stay with you always.”


End file.
